COTABATO CITY (May 7, 2026) — Almost all of the mayors in Basilan and Tawi-Tawi have joined the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, one of 16 partisan blocs now gearing up for the September 14 parliamentary elections in the autonomous region.
Radio reports on Wednesday, May 6, in the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan and Zamboanga and in the provinces in Central Mindanao stated that 10 of the 12 mayors in Maguindanao del Norte and five vice mayors in the province took oath as Bangsamoro Federalist Party members during a caucus in Davao City on Tuesday.
In Tawi-Tawi, 10 of the 11 Tausug and Sama mayors in the province also joined the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, sworn in by its senior official, Bangsamoro parliament member Tomanda Antok, an ethnic Maguindanaon, during a gathering in Bongao town, the provincial capital, last Monday.
Radio reports said nine municipal mayors in Basilan and the now second term chief executive of the vote-rich Lamitan City in the island province, Mayor Roderick Furigay, also converged in Zamboanga City last Friday and, in the presence of members of the 80-seat parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, pledged loyalty to the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, in the presence of their constituent-community leaders.
The Bangsamoro Federalist Party and the oldest, pioneer political party in BARMM, the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo (SIAP) that has more than 500,000 documented members and supporters across the autonomous region’s five provinces and three cities, also have candidates for the region’s 80-seat parliament during the September 14 regional electoral exercise.
Candidates of another political bloc, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, filed their certificates of candidacy at the regional and provincial offices of the Commission on Elections in BARMM on Wednesday. The UBJP’s political figurehead is Ahod Ebrahim, chairman of the MILF’s central committee, who had served as an appointed BARMM chief minister from early 2019 to March 2025.
Hundreds of policemen, led by Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, have been guarding since Tuesday the surroundings of the 32-hectare BARMM capitol compound in the city, where Comelec’s regional office is located, as part of the security measures meant to ensure a safe filing of COCs by candidates of different regional parties.
SIAP candidates for the parliamentary districts in Lanao del Sur were personally escorted by two ranking party officials, Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr. and Vice Gov. Mohammad Adiong in their filing of certificates of candidacy on Tuesday at the Comelec’s office in Marawi City.
Adiong, who, as governor, is also chairperson of the Lanao del Sur multi-sector Provincial Peace and Order Council, told reporters then that SIAP had committed to extensively support the joint efforts of the Comelec, the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and military’s Western Mindanao Command, under Amy Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, to ensure peaceful and honest September 14 regional polls in all five provinces and three cities in BARMM.
“We also have a hardline policy against using social media, or any mainstream media outfit, to malign other parties, or candidates that are rivals of our party’s candidates,” Adiong said.
Mayors in 32 of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur and in its capital, Marawi City, are members of SIAP, elected as its official candidates during last year’s May 12 local elections.
“We can even swear over a sacred Ouran that we in the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo Party shall abide with the Omnibus Election Code during the Bangsamoro regional elections,” Adiong, now in his third and last term as Lanao del Sur governor, said.
Photo shows policemen guarding tightly the surroundings of the Bangsamoro capitol in Cotabato City, where the regional office of Comelec is located and where aspirants for seats in the parliament file their candidacy, a requisite for their bid for election as lawmakers.
